I can't believe I came from there. No, no, you, you, you, you, and you know some people that I thought probably was dead man, uh, uh, they're 80, 85 years old. They're still around. And one, one lady, man, she took a paddle and said, I'm going to get you for what you didn't do. Yeah, B is from Indianola, Mississippi. But uh…

But you're from the same place as Muddy, and…

Clarkesdale.

And Wolf?

I don't know where Wolf is from. See, I found a lot of those acts back in those days, but I didn't know who they were, uh, uh, uh, uh -- see, I didn't even know who Little Walter was back in those days. In other words, I would just find somebody, that I liked the way they sound, and I would get their name and phone number and then when the … Brothers were coming back down, I would like take them to Texarkana, like you remember Ronnie Jones, Ronnie Jones? Well, Ronnie Jones, he was from Texarkana, Texas, uh, uh, Muddy. Uh, I can't remember all these guys names, but back in those days, man, uh, those guys, man, uh, like Elmore, Elmore James, that's a good example. Elmore, man, well see, I remember Elmore, basically because, he invested in me, he, he, he was a guy like, he's like six feet man, and he don't have no electricity where he's playing at. They got a lamplight. They got, a, a, a lamp. And man, like, three miles away, it's, he's guitar's not even electric, he got a piece of metal on his guitar. And he's sitting there, and he's playing that guitar with that piece of metal on it, and you could actually hear three miles away, and him stomping his feet, and here's another guy with a piece of rope on a tub, a rope, a single piece of rope on a tub, and he pulling on this darn rope, and you can hear it three or four miles away, man, and they're dancing by lamplight. Well, you, you, you know, that, uh, uh, uh, you blew a saxophone, everybody run, they wonder what is it.

Dr. Turner, tell me, we're doing a part in the show about the Memphis recording studios, and Sam and "Rocket 88" and all that. What had you heard about Sam Phillips and Memphis recording studios. Here was a white cat recording a lot of these black artists from the area, and had his reputation, can you tell me about that?

Well, see, I never knew that much about, uh, uh, Sam Phillips, at uh, what happened, is that uh -- B.B. left Clarkesdale and disappeared. And I didn't see him anymore. And we were playing in Greenville, Mississippi, after I put my little band together, and uh, this was like a year or something later, and every time we would leave Greenville, and every time we went back to Clarkesdale, it'd be 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, we'd pass Chambers, Mississippi, I'd see all these cars down by the road. Well, I'd seen the word B.B. King, but I never connected it with Riley, with Riley. I never knew it was the same guy. And so finally one night, uh, uh, uh, you know the kids are, they'd say, uh, let's see who was playing in this club. So there were, uh, uh, eleven of us in a 40 Ford. And uh, we went in there, and it was B.B. playing in the club. And so we asked him to let us play a song. We …, just …and me, so we just, whatever was hot on the jukebox in those days. So, uh, uh, he said, man, good as you guys are, man, so, let me set up an appointment with you, for you, at the record company that I'm with. And we say, yeah, really? And so we didn't have no songs, man, because "Rocket 88" was wrote on the way to Memphis. We, we, we didn't have nothing originally at all, nothing, so he said, well, uh, uh, so this is like on a Sunday, so he said he's going to set it up with a guy from Memphis, which he was referring to was Sam Phillips, and uh, uh, the first to come up and record. And so, uh, uh, Sam Phillips called. And he wanted us to come up to Memphis. So, of course, so we, was, we went up there, man, we went through a lot of stuff to get there man, getting arrested, the bass blown off the top of the car. But anyway, we, uh, uh, we went there, and this was when I met Sam Phillips. I didn't know that much, uh, uh, I, it's just that after he, and he was recording Phoenix Newman, and you had a thing in those days going between Chess Records and Modern Records, whoever get there with their money first, they would, if you -- like when you, like when we recorded "Moanin' At Midnight" for Chess, as soon as Chess give us the money for it, and give Wolf, Howlin' Wolf the money for it, well, Modern Record Company come in and give us some more money and we cut the same song for, for him. And so, anyway -- something went wrong?

Joe DeBarry, he was a little guy from Mississippi start giving me suits and clothes, and riding me around down through Mississippi in his car. You know this is an exciting life for me in those days. So anyway, I didn't, the only thing I did, was whenever Sam Phillips wanted, uh, like he wanted something done on the piano that he couldn't find a, you know, Phoenix Newman can play piano. He's uh, we called him Finest Newman, the junior, the Finest, he's a jazz player. You know, Phoenix? Yeah, yeah, well, him. Well, this guy man is so bad on piano it's unbelievable, when get down to playing with feeling, he didn't have the real feeling to play blues or stuff, so that's when we started, uh, I got with Joe DeBarry and we started doing things like, with him, with B.B., woke up this morning, 3 o'clock in the morning, all this stuff, we cut that stuff at the YMCA, the YMCA down there in Memphis down there on a, a, a, a Fort Lauderdale, I forgot. But anyway, the, uh, this is where all this stuff was recorded at. We would just get somebody at, when we didn't use the Y, we'd get somebody a fifth of whiskey, and they had a piano in their living room, and we'd use that for a studio. We had portable, portable equipment.

So I've heard this story about when you were driving up and the amp fell off the truck, and then Sam kind of jerry-rigged it and liked the sound. Could you tell me about that?

I don't even remember this incident. What happened?

When you were driving to Memphis and the amplifier fell of the car and broke?

Oh yeah, that, that, that wasn't in Memphis. That was in …, Mississippi, outside out of, on the way to Memphis. The when, it wasn't an amplifier, it was an oak, you know, a big standup, you know old standup, upright bass. It blew off the top of the car and the bass drum came out of the trunk. The amp got all wet up, and the tubes got screwed up. And anyway, uh, uh, it worked, but it was a fuzz, we didn't have fuzz in those days. But it uh, uh, uh, we still used it when we got to Memphis, we still used the amplifier, but I think that uh, uh, the bass, I don't think we used the bass, that's why on "Rocket 88" you got that piano thing -- [plays piano]. That's a guitar doing that, because in other words, what we were supposed to do with the upright bass, we couldn't do with the bass because the bass was busted.

When you were recording there with Sam, did you, did you have any idea that Sam Phillips had any kind of special talent.

Well, I'm going to say, I don't want to sound wrong, like I'm thinking about this -- I never really thought about him in that as far as talent as a musician. I think he had talent like knowing, uh, uh, songs, lyrics, uh, I think he and the lady in the front, I've forgotten her name, if you got a song, they would go down the songs and put in the the's, and the but's, and the and's and something like that. But they wouldn't like, but, but like, you know, today my head is totally around another way. It's difficult for me to think, like, like, like, where my head was, was at that time and somebody would come in, and uh, uh, some people want to get the name on your record and put a the or an and just to get the title of it, you understand? Whereas to me, if you write a song, you write it. If you're co-writing it, the two of you are co-writing it. Where back then, man, things were being taken, people were getting credit for stuff they weren't really doing. So I can't say that, uh, uh, uh, Sam -- not talking to you. I can't say, but I just know that a couple of songs that was written in the field. He and the lady in the front, they would set there with papers and try to do it. But he, oh, I know, I can answer that. He has talent, uh -- Sam Phillips's talent is as an engineer, doing the electrical and the recording and stuff like that, he's good. As far as knowing music, playing music, even writing, well, then, then, I can't pass comment on that.

A lot of people say that "Rocket 88", they call "Rocket 88" the first rock 'n' roll record. Does that make sense to you?

I don't now. I, I have no idea, uh, uh, uh, I don't really know. You-you-you-you know, uh, uh, uh, like you, like people categorize music, but like, uh, I don't, because otherwise, man, but I don't. Because otherwise man, any time, you can say, I can sit right here at this piano, and I can play you jazz, I can play you country, I can play you anything you name. And man, to me, it's all the same. It's just all, uh, uh, in other words, if a country guy is singing it, he's going to sing like y'all, you know like that ... But if a black guy's singing it, he's going to like, uh, uh, uh, the difference in the language barrier, I'd say hey, I need me a hurtin' to take that place of the hurtin'. Well, what that means is I need another one to take the place of that other one. Where other guys. But it's, it's, all to me the same, it's no different. But we, because number one is this. If, if, you you look at it from -- I'm trying to think should I say this. Okay, yeah, okay. Elvis Presley's supposed to be the king of uh, uh, rock 'n' roll, all right? Tina's supposed to be the queen of rock 'n' roll, well, this is what they say. Well, how can he be the king if I cut the first rock 'n' roll record? And how can you, how can you say what I play is R and B? I can play blues, I can play rock, I can play whatever you name. Well, how are you going to classify mine? Well, if you classify it as far as music is concerned, it's okay to classify it. But if you're going to classify it because of my color, well, then, I don't know about that.

Is there any difference in your mind between R and B and rock 'n' roll? The same thing?

Yes, yes, it's different. Yes, it's different, it's different than blues. Like, like, like, B.B. King is a thorough, B.B. King, uh, Albert Collins, uh, uh, uh, uh, well, I'm not going to spread out on that. Let's just stay on B.B. B.B. is a blues man, Bobby Blue Bland is a blues -- they're two different blues, in other, other, other, other words, other words, uh, uh, uh, B.B. would draw, well let's go to the pop market, the black market, white market, we going to get into this stuff a little bit. Okay, uh, B.B. draw white, 90 percent white, with his blues, because that's a pure hardy blues, I'm saying that's hard core blues, so would the Muddy Waters, something like that. Okay, now, uh, uh, uh, uh, Bobby Blue Bland you can't give him to a white market. You got some whites that like him. In other words, do you not, I love both of the guys so I'm not coming from, I have no, no, nothing in me against either, either, I'm just putting facts on the table, where, where you can't give Chuck Berry to a black. Really, we care less about Chuck Berry, really who, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, now we can, now blacks can accept Jimmy Reed. [sings] You got me running, you got me hiding. We can accept that, but what -- Way down in Louisiana where -- damn Louisiana, we don't… What I'm trying to say is like blacks, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, whites, uh, whites, Jimmy Reed to me is uh, uh, uh, is, is, is white. Chuck Berry is white. But Jimmy Reed would go black, blacks will buy Jimmy Reed, but blacks ain't going to, you got a few blacks made by, uh, uh, uh, uh, the, the, the, the other one. Now, the last thing is, is, okay, an example. One time with the record company, with Modern Record Company, the same I guy I used to work for as a kid, they said, Ike cut us a pop record. I said, okay, I went, uh, uh, and I looked, I went, what is it Mike and Stroller -- they real big today, Leiber and Mike Stroller, or whatever their name is, or you know who I'm talking about. I went all around to those guys, everybody man, trying to find something that was pop. And so, anyway man, finally man, I came up with this song "Peaches and Cream" on the Ikettes. [sings] Mama told me love is not all sweet, she said watch out for all the boys you meet, but if you find the bowl of cherries -- no -- but if you find the right boy to marry, life can be a bowl of cherries, like peaches -- Well, man, that ain't black, … Okay, now… Anyway, naming names. One, Lanier, which is the guy at Modern Record Company …

You were starting to tell me that "Rocket 88" was listened to by whites.

Yeah, I think that in those days, man, all of the, the, uh, the white bubblegum kids in those days started listening to "Rocket 88" where, where, um, um, Dewey's name, Dewey Phillips, yeah, he may have played Howlin' Wolf, uh, or something like that, but it wasn't like they was, they wasn't going to Woolworth's and different stores to buy it. But where, where this particular record they did.

Any idea why?

I think it's mostly like, whites like, whites like, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, actually a lot of boogie-woogie, a lot of boogie-woogie with the, uh, with the twanging singing on top of it. It's actually, uh, uh, uh, that's what it really is, uh, uh, uh, and, uh, uh, well that's, that's, that's about as much as I can say about it. I don't know what made, I don't what made, what would make them say it's the first rock 'n' roll record. I don't really know man because it was not, it wasn't too much of anything out except "Sentimental Journey," the Jim and Joe Liggins, and uh, stuff like this here, the, or the Dominoes, and all stuff like this. Um, Mint Julep, all of those kind of songs back in those days.

Let's talk about St. Louis for a while. When you were playing there, must have been in the mid-'50s, uh, you had a band, Chuck Berry had a band. Can you describe the differences between your two bands? What you were, or were they fairly similar and were you playing the same kind of places?

Well, yeah, we were, we actually playing the same places. Chuck Berry was playing on 17th and Broadway in East St. Louis at the Cosmopolitan. And I was playing at the Blue Flame, uh, on 17th and, uh, uh, -- oh, I'm sorry. Chuck Berry was playing at the Cosmopolitan on 17th and Bond, and I was playing the Blue Flame on 17th and Broadway, which was maybe 10 blocks apart. And uh, we were playing kind of the same thing, keeping up with, but Chuck Berry played a lot of original stuff more so. I, I was always a jukebox, I always kept up with the jukebox. Whatever was out on the jukebox this was what I kept up with. And uh, then Chuck Berry started going to Memphis, uh, uh, with, with, uh, to see Leonard Chess. And I was going to Chicago, and we would meet up some time on the way there, uh, to Cobra Records, I forget what that guy's name is. But anyway, uh, uh, uh, the great Chuck Berry was crying one night. They told Chuck, uh, man, we want something different -- Chuck said, well, what do you want me to do, stand on my head on the record? And he was like you know, you-you-you-you know it's like when you tell an act man, you want something different, well, what they were playing is different. They sit down and they write a song. Although it may sound like some other song, but if it's different, it's got different words, to him it's different. But you know, but, but, but, you know, like today, like, uh, knowing music like I do, they be talking about the chord structure or something, something different that's got a different sound, etc. And man, Chuck was really down. He was, for a fact, I mean physically crying. He was crying, man, telling me, what do you want me to do, stand on my head on the record? But this was, this was the bad old days though.

Well, was he doing stuff that you might call more country than what you were doing? I mean, people talk about his music as having kind of a country flavor.

I don't really know, because, see, I never, I never went to hear Chuck there, although we played that close together. I think that Chuck Berry was more of a, a, a, a, a, of, of, of, of an original than I was at that time. I kept up with jukeboxes and when it was time for me to record, I would write something. But other than that, he would get on stage, like, he would get on stage, and he would play his original stuff on stage, and I think that he has a, a, a country feel to his stuff. And, and, and uh, uh, uh, his, I guess I would use the vocabulary man, is more, is more whiter than, than, than, than the average black person. Because in other words, like, I'm just saying, he, his thought of something would be more whiter than what I would think. In other words, and then in a lot of different ways. Because one time it's stupid, like, you know, they would hang you in Mississippi for winking your eye at a, if a white woman said you winked your eye at one. And I know, uh, uh, Chuck Berry brought a white woman into Jackson, a white 16 year old girl into Jackson, Mississippi, man, when we were playing down there. But I'm talking, his mind is not like, uh, uh, not like, I wouldn't even send my picture down there with my fiancee down there, because they said, we holding the picture, we waiting on you. No, but anyway, but Chuck, but Chuck's education man, I mean, the, his, his upbringing, his schooling, man, made him, he was more into a country feel, than, than, than to a blues or, he's not blues at all. He, he's more into rock, uh, uh, rhythm rock.

What do you think he was trying to do when he went to record with the Chesses in Chicago? Was he really aiming at trying to get into that pop market?

No, no, no, no, and, and, and I say, I say first of all, uh, uh, I don't even know. I would say that wasn't his intentions. I, I, uh, I think man, things like, things like what happened with him at Chess is something, Chess just heard in his music where this is the white, uh, uh, -- [beats rhythm] -- this is a white beat. Where, uh, uh, that's like a white shuffle where -- in other words, example, man. Whites, white, a white boy play a drum, uh, they're going to play, a, a, a shuffle, okay, if the beat is -- [beats] -- that's black. All right, that's black. Whites -- [beats]. Whites accent every one, one and three, where blacks accent two and four. And you know, you, you, you, if you listen, you can tell on a record man what kind of a drummer it is. You can sit and look at a white guy patting his feet, and you can tell whether they been around blacks. It's just -- well, let me get off of that, I'm getting off into something else.

What about, did you ever listen to Chuck's lyrics? I mean he seemed like he was really aiming at those white teenagers…

I understand, but he learned all that from Leonard Chess, not that he, not, his, his culture, his bringing up, but whatever he learned in school man, his education, whatever it is, his rhythm, he, he likes country music, and so Chuck Berry, I mean Leonard Chess, I would think saw the combination of the two and put it together. Like right now, I'm doing something similar to the same thing with a guy, man, it's like, if you see, if you got the rhythm, uh, uh, like right, like today, man, believe me, like uh, uh, like in other words, I might not be around 15 years from now, but I'll say this. You go to see, man, that what you can take one beat -- [claps] -- and you can get one beat, and you can put country right there with it, you can put reggae with it, and you can put it all, and never change the, never change the beat, you only change it -- it's like colors, man, you only, it all blends together, but because of you, it's, I remember saying it like this. All, there is no such thing as a fast song and a slow song. It's all in your mind that you, that you accept it as fast or slow. The slowest song is as fast as the fast, in other words, that one beat, all you do, that's all you do is divide the beat, if you divide it up, and then start taking beats out, and then you put that one here, and one here and do -- I've been loving you too long -- and if you put them other beats in there, it's the same tempo. So it's in our mind that we, that we make them fast and slow. But they're all the same. And so you're going to find, man, the music is going to get really integrated pretty soon, man. I mean, most of them are integrated in other words like you're talking about bluegrass, country, reggae, soul, but it's all the same, man, and I know man, I said it in my house, and I don't know if I've going to have time before she leaves to, to, to give you some of it man, but I said in my house, I integrated it, it, it, and, and, and it's amazing man, how music can be integrated man, and, and, and, and I'm talking like, and it's different, it's, uh, uh, it's something for everybody in one song. Where today, if you can play some country, I don't like country, if you play blues, I don't like blues. But where you can take one man, you can please everybody man, and I think that's what we're going too.

I never played music in church man. The only thing I would play in church, man, I would go in and that's how I would make money. These things right here? See this wire inside of this piano? This wire is the same wire that's inside of a car tire right at the rim. This steel wire right here. I can tell you look, give me a felt hat, a car tire, and some shoestrings and I'll make a piano. I'm telling you the truth. This is how I used to make money as a kid. If you take a tire car and burn it and snake the wire out, this is the same wire. All you do is send it off and put in a piano. It's a steel wire. And a socket wrench, you know, you need the socket wrench to tune it with. And this stuff right here, you take a felt hat and make it. And if you look in here, right under, these _______, you can take a shoestring and do the same thing as that and hook it on a shoestring and pull it down. No, I'd make a piano with a hat. That's how I used to make money. I would go to church and fix the church's piano.

You were talking a little bit earlier about Elvis and all, do you think that Sam, there are all these stories that you here. Do you think Sam Phillips was actively looking for a white boy that he could cut some rhythm and blues music with.

No, I know, I know, I just think that, uh, in my opinion, I think it's just something that showed up. I just think that, uh, uh, uh, like I said about Chuck Berry. I think that Leonard Chess had the knowledge just to recognize the talent that Chuck Berry had and the rhythm, and that this could be, although Chuck is black and singing the blues, he's got a bluesy feeling, and I think that he recognized that would go good with a black beat. And I think that, in other words, I think that a lot of stuff that Chuck got out is somebody beating on a piano something like this. It's not drums, you understand? So I think the same thing with Elvis, I think Elvis just showed up. He's a black guy that is in the, he's a white guy that's into black music. And there was no such thing. You know, see because, see look. Blues has been in America among the blacks ever since there was America, blacks over here. But you know, it wasn't recognized in America until the English brought it over here in the '60s. And today, man, today blacks are ashamed of blues. You, you, you go tell a black guy man, hey, man, uh, uh, uh, hey, c'mon man, tell me some blues. What are you telling me, he don't want to play no blues, he don't like no blues. That's not his, it's something, it's like the lowest part of shit -- oh, I'm sorry. But that's like the butt end of him, you understand. But where, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, it's like, that's his real gut man, what he really, he really needs to learn that before he go off into something else, started with rock 'n' roll. That, that's my son behind you over there, same thing, man. He play guitar man, you know, he don't nothing about blues. It ain't the speed. The sharp end of notes he can play. And until you can play one note, you can't play ten.